Poem 398

The impossibility of recapturing a person from a photo, particularly if they’re against the light … ironically the objects a photo catches seem to summon up the past more effectively and evocatively than the person or people it was meant to record …

… I like the idea that beyond the limit of the photo, tantalisingly glimpsed through the half-open venetian blinds, lies an entire world long vanished … and the fact that even though this person is facing the camera they are as or more mysterious than if they’d turned their head away … (I remember that golden chair – my mother reupholstered it in a night class) …

Window On The Past

I looked into the photo of you
and couldn't see you
                                             I stared in until my eyes
adjusted to the dark focus
      picking out all the things
      in the room I had forgotten
the splayed golden chair books furniture
and venetians behind you
                                                      the whole wide world
of the past through the slats
unrealistically blue
                                        and you still
under the shadow of a bad camera setting
                                                                                      hand
hanging over the edge of the bed
deep shape of your face
turned this way
                                 impenetrable
waiting for the wasted click